


A Tincture for your Regrets

by afflatussolace



Series: where you go fate will surely follow [5]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, Lalafell Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Multiple Warriors of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), a healer wol centric piece, no definitive time point or spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27129235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afflatussolace/pseuds/afflatussolace
Summary: She’d signed up for grief the moment she dedicated her life to healing othersReuploaded from myblog. For the ffxivwrite2020 event held on tumblr.
Series: where you go fate will surely follow [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1971088
Kudos: 2





	A Tincture for your Regrets

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt #05 - Matter of Fact  
>  _"a fact as distinct from an opinion or conjecture"_

  
  


Illya should’ve come to expect this - she knew what she’d be getting herself into the moment she joined the conjurer’s guild, agreed to become a white mage, poured her entire being into someone whose life could be helpful in saving others - to heal.

Life as a medic has certainly been filled with many moments of relief and satisfaction.. and she, more than any other.. Eorzea’s very own beloved prodigy of healing magic would understand that there was truly no greater pride to behold than to see one’s own patients hale and whole once again. 

But the saved lives of an accumulated thousands will never wash away the stench of blood that made her hands shrivel - of the lives that she could not save. 

Her linkpearl laid neglected on the glade study table next to toppled medicinal bottles, ringing as incessantly as the pounding of the door. She could not hear anything beyond the beating of her own heart, of the rustling of fabric as she repeatedly clenches her hands, swollen eyes staring down at her fingertips as if she’d wished to claw at her own skin.

Her head is heavy, but her chest is heavier, weighed down by a crippling guilt that she could not even wash away with a couple uncharacteristic swigs of ale. And when alcohol had not sufficed to dull her senses, she’d taken to locking herself away in her study, surrounded by proof that her efforts had all been for naught. 

What good were the tomes she’d spent hours poring over? What good were the the potions she’d painstakingly brewed with herbs and harvested flowers she’d gathered at the crack of dawn? What good was a healer who could not heal?

“ILLYA! ILLYA PLEASE!” 

It took the combined efforts of E’lija and Sigfred to pull a thoroughly distraught pink miqo’te from practically clawing at the locked door, her fists already raw and bruised from how hard she’d knocked on the door. 

“I-it’s not your fault!! If you have to blame anyone, blame me!! Blame me for not helping you!! I should’ve been there!! Please, anything but blame yourself!!”

Ever the self-appointed scapegoat, Laurelis continued to cry onto deaf ears. She’d jump through many hoops to find ways to plead guilty, found blame in places she had no part in. And the only thing more visceral and nauseating than the thought of what she could have done for her friend was the knowledge of the crushing guilt Illya must have felt as she’d watched her own patient slip away helplessly. 

“We need to give her some space. She will be okay. She will come back to us when she is ready.” The oldest of the party pressed a hand down against the sobbing woman’s shoulder, and Laurelis puts up little resistance as she falls back onto an armchair. Or rather, it’d be more accurate to say that she’s all but spent what little energy she had left on squeezing out remaining droplets of her fruitless tears. 

“And how can you say that for sure?! H-how… What if-”

“Have all the time we spent together taught you nothing?” Sigfred scowls with crossed arms. She almost thinks to retort and yell back, scream at the top of her lungs at the callousness he was showing - that he’d always shown to their far kinder, gentler friend. 

But her throat tightens, and she bites down hard on her lower lip. 

“Have faith.” even Heisuke, a man who’d always carried himself with eccentricity and flare, now spoke with a hushed tone… and there was not a single trace of insincerity within his words. 

And Laurelis finally begrudgingly admits them to be right. 

This isn’t the first time this has happened, and it certainly won’t be the last. If anyone should understand this fact, it should’ve been her.

Guilt was only natural, and Laurelis is certain were she in the same position, she’d feel the same as Illya - perhaps even handle the burden of her guilt far worse than even the lalafell. To expect someone to smile after watching their own patient pass from this life would be a cruelty, and to ask Illya to swear off her job as a medic to save her from grief would be even more so. 

For as long as Illya chose to be a chirurgeon, found joy and purpose to her life in healing the sick and mending the injured.. there will always be regret and guilt laced in between the millions of lives she’d save. 

This was but a matter of fact - the way of life for a healer.

Laid next to a parchment of her old patient’s profile, dotted with a myriad of tear stains laid a taller stack of other documents and papers, each containing the name and information of yet another patient who requested Illya’s help, who were placing their faith and trust upon her to rescue them from their plight.

She sniffs, blinking back tears she’d feared would fall again despite already crying herself dry. And with trembling fingers, she reached out to gently grab the stack of documents, and begins to read them under the flickering lamplight.


End file.
